Same-Sex Marriage and the Empire State: A Legal Roundup

As anyone who’s already opened his or her internet browsers on Saturday knows, same-sex marriage is coming to New York.

Late Friday night, in an eleventh-hour vote on the issue, the Republican-led Senate voted to legalize same-sex marriage.

The Democratic-led state Assembly had already signed off on the bill, so after the Senate vote, the only remaining piece of business required to turn the bill into law was for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign it. He did so just before midnight, making the Empire State the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire. (Same-sex marriage is also legal in Washington, D.C.)